


our children will be legacy

by okayantigone



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Tag to The King's Men, The King's Men -Nora Sakavic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-21 23:02:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11367450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okayantigone/pseuds/okayantigone
Summary: tetsuji moriyama, forced to face the loss of a life's work, and a life - riko's life. Tag to the ending of The King's Men.





	our children will be legacy

_god help and forgive me,_   
_i want to build something that’s gonna_

_outlive me (Hamilton, Lin Manuel Miranda)_

“Do you ever regret not having any children of your own?” Kayleigh had asked once, while they were pouring over maps and budget spreads, and proposals for the ERC.

“I have a child,” Tetsuji had said, distractedly. “Legacy is my child.”

“Sometimes, I think you forget, Riko is also a person,” Kayleigh had said humorously. “Go easier on him. He’s not just your legacy. He’s a child.”

He hadn’t even been thinking of Riko then. Had forgotten, as he often did in those easly days, that the child that was Riko lived and breathed under his roof. But Riko had grown into a fine legacy anyhow, and by then, Tetsuji didn’t need to remember anything about him, that he couldn’t look up on his fanpages, or in his wiki page, or in the papers.

His legacy is at his feet, blood seeping into the thick rug, pale face frozen in perpetual shock.

He stays unmoving until Ichirou, and his nameless faceless guards are out of the room, and then moves with shaking hands to touch Riko’s cooling skin, brush his blood matted hair out.

At once, he is left childless, and without legacy. Riko’s dull eyes stare at him, blank, as they often did in those last few months, when Tetsuji spoke to him the language of punishment, and he was convinced Riko at those times left his bruised skin, and only ever returned when Tetsuji was out of the room. But he wasn’t coming back now, not from this, and neither was Kevin, and neither was Jean.

He had forgotten, that he was building an empire on borrowed land, and the new landlord had stepped in, and reclaimed his dues.

“It is… my great… unfathomable regret,” he begins, with the cameras flashing in his face the following morning, “to announce … my retirement as coach of the Edgar Allan Ravens, the Olympic Court, as well as my forfeit of any and all official duties associated with the ERC. In the early hours of this morning… my nephew, Riko, who had long been struggling with a growing sense of desperation after the loss of Kevin’s friendship… took his own life.”

His voice briefly drowned out under the screeching of the media vultures, and their bright lights in his face. He wondered if this is how Kevin and Riko had felt at all times. He wondered if he’d been cruel to them.

“In the wake… of this deep personal tragedy… so soon after the loss of my beloved older brother… I find that I am no longer able to perform my duties, which for a long time eclipsed my familial relationship… And it is that oversight which I blame for Kevin’s estrangement, and Riko’s … recent… affliction. Once… my old friend, Kayleigh Day, spoke about children, and joked that while she had a child, my child was merely legacy. Today, as I face you… I find myself at a loss – childless… and bereft of my legacy, which ends now, with Riko’s illustrious career in a sport I created fully intending to bequeath him, as my son.  
At this time, both me, Kevin and Jean, would request that you not attempt to contact us for further comments, and instead allow us to recover from this loss privately. A public vigil will be held for Riko with his old teammates, and all those who loved him later this week at the Castle Evermore court – the place, which he loved more than anything in the world, and the place he chose as his final destination. Please, do not ask me any more questions.”

He feels old. Older still. Feels death in his bones. Thinks maybe, Ichirou should have shot him instead. Wonders how he even lasted that long, kept alive out of Kengo’s misguided mercy.

He writes his official resignation letter to the lulling rhythm of thousands of fans swarming outside the stadium, chanting Riko’s name.


End file.
